New Delhi:
A former Amazon employee, among the first to work for the e-commerce giant, has shared his work experience and his connections with founder Jeff Bezos. Steve Yegge, 56, began his career at Amazon in 1998 as a technical programme manager, four years after Mr Bezos launched the business.
Speaking to Business Insider, Mr Yegge discussed how he joined Amazon and worked on a “secret project” that the company’s millionaire founder had commissioned. “I found Amazon could be a horrible place to work,” Mr Yegge said, looking back on his time there.
He disliked Amazon’s workplace culture, for workers would refrain from requesting leaves of absence due to “this pressure that everybody had to work all the time.”
He called the Amazon offices “dark and dingy,” but said the vibe was amazing regardless of the unattractive setting.
“Once you stepped into the building, there was a crackle in the air,” Mr Yegge remarked.
Despite having a bad experience at Amazon, Mr Yegge had a lot of respect for the company’s founder and said he “really liked” him.
“I didn’t like working at Amazon, but I actually really liked Jeff,” Mr Yegge said, adding he was a “hands-on leader” who had an “unmistakable magnetism to him.”
Mr Bezos was occasionally blind to issues in the office because he was so “focused on the mission”, Mr Yegge said.
He added that working with the billionaire and his leadership team was “normally calm and serious with a sense of urgency”.
Mr Bezos would “sometimes laugh in their faces” when others voiced concerns to him. People around him are “very cautious” with their language, Mr Yegge added.
Although Mr Yegge criticised Amazon’s office culture, he clarified that the company’s commercial operations had nothing to do with his decision to cut ties with it.
He is still a customer of Amazon and “don’t boycott them because of their practices”.
Steve Yegge left Amazon in 2005 to work for Google.